Background

Syed Ameer Ali was born on April 6, 1849, in Cuttack, India (now Odisha, India). He was the fourth of five sons of Syed Saadat Ali. His father moved the family to Calcutta, and then to Chinsura where they settled more permanently.

Education

Syed Ameer Ali was educated by private English tutors and later entered the University of Calcutta where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1867. In 1868, he received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Calcutta and one year later a Bachelor of Laws degree. After that, Ali won a government scholarship to study in Britain.

Career

Syed Ameer Ali combined his legal practice with studies at Calcutta University. When he moved to London in 1869, he joined professional associations for barristers and judges called the Inner Temple. Ali returned to Kolkata in 1873 and resumed his legal practice at Calcutta High Court. In the same year, he became a lecturer in Islamic Law at Presidency University. In 1881, Ali took up a post of a professor of Law at the University of Calcutta. He held this post until 1890 when he became a judge at Calcutta High Court where he worked until 1904. In 1909, he moved to London where he worked as a judge at the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Syed Ameer Ali published his first book A Critical Examination of the Life and Teachings of Mohammed in 1873. Later he wrote such books as The Personal Law of Muhammedans, The Spirit of Islam and A Short History of Saracens. His last book The Legal Position of Women in Islam was published in 1912. Syed Ameer Ali also established the London Muslim League in 1908. In 1910, he formally co-established the London Mosque Fund, alongside a group of prominent British Muslims. This fund financed the building of the East London Mosque, today one of the largest mosques in Europe.

Achievements

• Syed Ameer Ali was an Indian educator, judge, lawyer, philosopher, and writer who was famous for his books on Muslim history and the modern development of Islam. His most famous books are The Spirit of Islam and A Short History of the Saracens. Ali was a founding member of the All India Muslim League. He also was the first Indian to sit as a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and became entitled to be addressed as The Right Honourable.
  
  There is a very famous Hall in the University of Rajshahi which is named in Syed Ameer Ali's honor The "Sayed Ameer Ali Hall". In recognition of his services, Pakistan Postal Service issued a commemorative postage stamp in 1990 to honor him in its 'Pioneers of Freedom' series.

Works

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  • A Critical Examination of the Life and Teachings of Mohammed 1873
  • The Personal Law Of The Mahommedans: According To All The Schools 1880
  • The Spirit of Islam 1891
  • The Ethics of Islam 1893
  • A Short History of the Saracens 1899

Views

Syed Ameer Ali believed that the Muslims as a downtrodden nation could get more benefit from loyalty to the British rather than from any opposition to them. He called upon his followers to devote their energy and attention to popularising English education among the Muslims. This perception and consequent activism have been known as the Aligarh Movement.

Although Ameer Ali was a pillar of the British establishment in India he also sought to defend the principles of Islam as relevant to the modern world. He sees the main contribution which Islam has to make to history as the notion of ethical humanism. He said that the object of religion is to communicate ethical points, and Islam is superior to other religions such as Christianity since the Muslim faith, on the whole, rejects insularity and exclusiveness, allows the liberty of conscience and freedom of belief, and advocates toleration in religion and politics.

Quotations: "Each age has its own standard. What is suited for one time is not suited for the other."

Membership

Syed Ameer Ali was a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the Bengal Legislative Council.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Major R. D. Osborn: "Regarded simply as a literary achievement, we have never read anything issuing from the educated classes in this country which could be compared with it; and the Muslims of India are to be congratulated on the possession of so able a man in their rank. It is impossible, if his after-life accords with this early promise that he should not leave his influence for good stamped upon the country in deep and enduring characters."
  
  David Samuel Margoliouth: "The charming and eloquent treatise of Syed Ameer Ali, The Spirit of Islam, is probably the best achievement in the way of an apology for Mohammed that is ever likely to be composed in a European language."

Connections

Syed Ameer Ali married Isabelle Ida Konstam in 1884. The marriage produced two sons.

Father:

Syed Saadat Ali

Wife:

Isabelle Ida Konstam

Son:

Warns Amir Ali

Son:

Torick Ameer Ali

References

• Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers This Biographical Dictionary provides detailed accounts of the lives, works, influence and reception of thinkers from all the major philosophical schools and traditions of the twentieth-century. This unique volume covers the lives and careers of thinkers from all areas of philosophy - from analytic philosophy to Zen and from formal logic to aesthetics.
  1996